Mel Klaus
February 21, 1995As to told to Denison Thomas
The place where I was born and raised and lived the first 13 years of my life is now covered by water from the Prineville Reservoir. It was 12 miles down the river from Post at a place called the Bailey School District.
I was only ten years old when I helped my father cut timbers for a steel bridge that was being rebuilt. We spent about a week skidding pilings and hauling them by wagon to the bridge crew. The bridge was exactly where the Prineville Reservoir is now. We logged the timber off of Riverside Ranch up Wickiup Creek.
After I grew up and we had sold the ranch and moved to town, one of my first real jobs in the timber industry was working for Arch Ream and his sons at their mill on Maury Mountain. We felled timber and skidded it to the mill. When we had enough logs to mill, each of us had a job in the sawmill. We'd cut the logs into rough lumber, load it on a lumber truck, and haul it into town to Pine Products. I worked at that mill part of one summer.
Next, I drove log truck for Hudspeths. We hauled Hudspeth's private timber off of Rudio Mountain and Stevenson Mountain.
I left Hudspeth and went to work in BCK's truck shop for about two years. BCK hauled logs for Alexander-Yawkey. The owners were Les Bosch, John Cannon and Bob Kincaid. They had trucks from working on the Alcan Highway. They were the first to bring in some big off-the-highway type log trucks with 12 foot wide bunks. It was one of the finest run logging truck operations that you could find.
John Cannon was an exceptionally good mechanic. BCK disbanded when Alexander-Yawkey shut down and the owners went their separate ways. The big off-the-highway log trucks were taken to an airplane hangar in Albany and stored. After a year or two in storage they were sold to a logging outfit in Alaska and spent out their days hauling logs in Alaska.
I left BCK to buy a lumber truck. From that time on, for the rest of my working years, I was self employed. I hauled for Midstate Lumber Company from the mill in Spray, Oregon to Prineville, until they ceased operating. After that I bought a log truck and hauled logs until 1959. When there were no logs to haul around Prineville I went to California and hauled logs. Then I came back to Prineville and found that there were more log trucks than there were logs. So I parked my log truck and went to falling timber for John Graves. He was logging for Ochoco Lumber Company. I stayed with John five years.
John Graves moved to John Day to work for Speck Hudspeth. I had just bought the Willard Adkisson Ranch and I didn't feel I could leave and move to John Day. So, in the mid-60's I formed my own company and started logging.
In the early 70's I was presented with the Logger of the Year Award by the State of Oregon. The Forest Practices Act, which regulated logging practices on private property, had just come into existence. We were working on Lyle Miller's private timber near Paulina. They must have liked what they saw. I was flown to LaGrande in a Lear Jet for the award ceremony.
At about the same time someone was promoting a log cutting contest here in Prineville. They brought in a load of wood logs and placed them on the vacant lot where the old Ochoco Inn had burned down. There were four of us on John Collins team. They were Vernon Queen, John Collins, Marty Bales, and myself. We won the contest.
That was the beginning of our annual timber carnival. Mrs. Crawford, head of the Chamber of Commerce, noted the interest that was shown in the log cutting contest. She went to the various mills all over Central Oregon and sought sponsors for an annual event and The Central Oregon Timber Carnival Association was formed. I was on the Board of Directors of the Association until 1975 when I sold my logging outfit and went to Alaska to help build the Alaska Pipeline.
I've worked in the woods all my life and I still enjoy going to the woods but I'm retired now and out of the logging industry.
I have flown over the Ochocos and noticed that the forest is infested with bug kill and blow-down. There are salvage operations going on right now, however, and I believe that common sense will prevail.